Put Poetry First this Month with Books from Sheep Meadow Press!

April is the month when the world celebrates the importance of poetry in our lives. To join the celebration we’re highlighting five books of poetry from our press and our distribution partner, Sheep Meadow Press. We hope these selections will spark your interest, and encourage you to read a poem, share a poem, or write your own poem.

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In the Alley of the Friend

In the Alley of the Friend is a translation of the Persian book Dar Kuy-e Dust which is about the fourteenth century poet Hafez, who is often recognized as the most original Persian poet of all time. Scholars have studied his work for centuries, exploring his life and his deeply moving poetry of love, spirituality, and protest. Ghanoonparvar’s translation of scholar Shahrokh Meskoob’s analysis of Hafez’s work provides profound insight into the poets thoughts and spirit.

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The Noise of the Rain

Sarah Plimpton’s The Noise of the Rain illustrates her collected poems with simplistic black on white and white on black drawings. Both an artist and poet, some have referred to her creations as being as quiet as the moments just before sleep, almost like preludes to dreams. Word choice and the way she arranges her poetry exudes a certain simple intensity. You can find her books in the The Museum of Fine Arts, The New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Winters Come, Summers Gone

Winters Come, Summers Gone is a collection of selected poems by the notable Howard Moss.
This book combines work from his first three published volumes with fourteen new poems. Moss was an American poet, critic, and the poetry editor of The New Yorker for nearly forty years. He wrote eleven books of poetry and even won the National Book award in 1972. Much of his poetry centers around the theme of love in its various forms.

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Perhaps Bag

Perhaps Bag is a collection of poems by acclaimed British poet Carol Rumens. Starting with her first set of poems in 1968 to her most recent and unpublished pieces from 2017, Rumens “retains her feminine voice but extends her sympathies beyond feminism” (Anne Stevenson). She has written fourteen books of poetry and currently serves as a Professor of Creative Writing at Bangor University, in Wales.

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Snow Part

Perhaps one of the most distinguishable poets of all time, Paul Celan, described Schneepart as his “strongest and boldest” book. It’s a response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and is a collection of poetry haunted by images of violence and resistance in a dark European century. Snow Part is the first published English translation of Schneepart. Its seventy poems were published in 1971, a year after Celan’s death. Translator Ian Fairley includes twenty posthumous poems that are closely related to the themes found in Schneepart.

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To learn more or purchase any of the books listed on this page, visit our website!

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